Is it just me or is this getting worse? Some of this stuff makes me wonder when the writer is going to be graduating from high school.
Dear Writer:
Calling your characters "Wharrior" and "Frehnzy" doesn't make your story cool. Neither does a reference to a "childe" or a "songe" unless your story is set in a period when that spelling was used. "Sylvyr" and its permutations don't impress me either. Spell things correctly. If you want to be different, use foreign names, or for SF and fantasy you can make something up from scratch. The universe should charge a nickel -- per letter, multiplied by the number of copies of the book/story printed -- for every extraneous "H" and "E" and for every "Y" pasted on where another vowel should be.
Apostrophes, linguistically, indicate a glottal stop. If that's not what you want, don't use them. Anne McCaffery gets a pass because her dragon riders actually shortened their names when they got their dragons, so her apostrophes indicated legitimate contractions. If your word isn't a contraction and doesn't have a glottal stop, leave the apostrophes out. Names like "Jo'nathan" or "T'revor" don't look cool. Making up a name doesn't help -- if you pronounce "Lerin'elia" the same way you'd pronounce "Lerinelia," leave out the apostrophe. And seriously, there are so many writers nowadays who think throwing in a pointless apostrophe is just too cool that even if you do mean to indicate a glottal stop in the middle there, most people will assume you're a teenager trying to sound cool anyway.
Capitalizing a blah noun won't make it any less blah. If your character is carrying the Cup, the Candle and the Flask into the Hall where the Warrior will perform the Ceremony, you need to go back and rethink a few things. If something is that special, it'll probably have a name. Think of one and then use it. If it's not, then it doesn't require a capital, so don't use one.
Caveat: if you're using a chunk of a longer proper name, you can capitalize that. So for example, I'm from the United States of America, and calling it "the States" is legitimate because "States" is part of a proper noun. Having your hero wield "the Sword," though, just makes me eyeroll unless you told me earlier that it's actually "the Barliman Sword of Truth" or whatever.
Putting an English word into italics doesn't make it sound foreign. If your character speaks a foreign language -- either a realspace language or one you've made up for your SF or fantasy book -- then either use that language with italics or translate it into English without italics. English in italics just makes it look like you're going through the text with a hilighter, marking the cool parts for us so we know they're cool. It doesn't work.
Yes, I've been reading. This has been bugging me more and more recently, and I just ran across Nathan Bransford's post on readers' pet peeves. My comment got kind of long [cough] so I brought it back here.
I'm expecting to see a Syl'vyr Childe named Cuhr'se wander through the Door with an engraved Knife any time now. [headdesk]
Angie
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Earthquake
Just checking in. [wave] It was a wild ride, but we're okay. Some stuff fell off shelves and tables and such, but there was no actual damage.
I was born in California and have lived here all my life, and usually I just sit wherever I am and enjoy a quake, but this one felt big -- hard and long and rolling. It reminded me very strongly of the '89 quake up in the Bay Area, and I actually got up and stood in the doorway for this one. Turns out it was a lot smaller (they're calling it 5.4; that one was 8.1) but also a lot closer (I was in Sunnyvale for that one, about 60km away from the epicenter, whereas this one was about 35km or so away).
We didn't even lose power, though. Everyone was sort of O_O and then it was over. I haven't even felt the aftershocks, although there were a couple of 3.8s.
Angie
I was born in California and have lived here all my life, and usually I just sit wherever I am and enjoy a quake, but this one felt big -- hard and long and rolling. It reminded me very strongly of the '89 quake up in the Bay Area, and I actually got up and stood in the doorway for this one. Turns out it was a lot smaller (they're calling it 5.4; that one was 8.1) but also a lot closer (I was in Sunnyvale for that one, about 60km away from the epicenter, whereas this one was about 35km or so away).
We didn't even lose power, though. Everyone was sort of O_O and then it was over. I haven't even felt the aftershocks, although there were a couple of 3.8s.
Angie
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Evaluating the Data
Do you care who it is who's commenting on your writing?
I never have, and have always had a hard time understanding people who react negatively (and sometimes obnoxiously) when they get feedback from someone they don't personally know, or someone who's not a writer, or someone who otherwise doesn't have whatever qualifications they feel someone must have in order to comment.
To me, any constructive criticism is data and it's all useful. Even if I examine it and end up deciding that the commenter simply isn't a member of my target audience (someone who thinks I should get rid of the romance in what's clearly a romance novel, for example [cough]) and decide not to act on the expressed opinion, I now have a bit more information about reader views and tastes than I did before.
Comments are either useful or not, in and of themselves, independent of who's making them. A well-stated and reasoned comment, which clearly has some knowledge of craftsmanship behind it and which refers specifically to a line or paragraph or other specific chunk of a particular story of mine is always worth getting, even if it's written by someone who's "just" a reader, or a stranger, or a nonymouse. On the other hand, if one of my very favorite writers in all the world said, "Seriously, this needs some work," I'd probably thank them for taking the time to comment, but wouldn't value the feedback very much because, wow, vague. :/
Some writers get personally offended when someone offers concrit to a story which has already been published. I don't get this either, because pretty much any mistake I made once, I might well make again and hearing about it even after the fact lets me make a note of it and take care not to make it again next time, even if I can't edit the story which was just published. Learning from my earlier mistakes is always desirable, and I honestly don't care who it is who points me toward the lesson.
Maybe it helps that I "grew up" as a writer in some fairly intense workshop environments. When you get serious pros and intense hopefuls all in the same bucket and have them tearing apart each other's stuff, with the idea that it's better for your workshop peers to spot something than that editor you're hoping will offer you a contract, you learn pretty quickly that concrit is gold and that excessive ego does nothing but block you from any hope of being published. (And in all honesty, the old GEnie SFRT was not for the faint of heart nor the thin of skin, whether you were in the workshops or not.) I grew an adamantium hide in the early years of my online participation as a writer, and while I'll admit that's an advantage which not everyone has, I can only suggest that anyone who wants to be a professional writer grow one of their own as quickly as they can manage. This is not a good business for the delicate or sensitive to be in.
Maybe it's the fact that I value my writing, my skill and my hope of improving both, much more highly than I value the delicacy of my writerly feelings. Sure, I wince for a moment if someone says they didn't care for one of my stories, and I get horribly embarassed if someone points out an obvious flaw I missed. But I want to learn and grow as a writer more than I want to avoid those wincing embarassments, by a few orders of magnitude. I want to know what people think and why, and what they think is problematic or just plain wrong, and the why of that too.
Anyone who can clearly explain what they liked and disliked, what they thought was going on and what they thought was going to happen next, where they laughed or winced or gasped, where I fooled them and where they saw right through my attempted misdirection, what they think worked or didn't work with specific examples and reasons for it all -- anyone who gives me that kind of feedback is going to be one of my favorite people ever, and I don't care who it is or whether I know them or whether they're a writer or whether they're someone who wandered by and posted anonymously. It's the data I value, not the source. Good, clear, useful data is always valuable and always makes itself obvious; I don't need an attached name or title or resume to help me decide whether the data is useful.
Or at least, that's how I see it. How about you?
Angie
I never have, and have always had a hard time understanding people who react negatively (and sometimes obnoxiously) when they get feedback from someone they don't personally know, or someone who's not a writer, or someone who otherwise doesn't have whatever qualifications they feel someone must have in order to comment.
To me, any constructive criticism is data and it's all useful. Even if I examine it and end up deciding that the commenter simply isn't a member of my target audience (someone who thinks I should get rid of the romance in what's clearly a romance novel, for example [cough]) and decide not to act on the expressed opinion, I now have a bit more information about reader views and tastes than I did before.
Comments are either useful or not, in and of themselves, independent of who's making them. A well-stated and reasoned comment, which clearly has some knowledge of craftsmanship behind it and which refers specifically to a line or paragraph or other specific chunk of a particular story of mine is always worth getting, even if it's written by someone who's "just" a reader, or a stranger, or a nonymouse. On the other hand, if one of my very favorite writers in all the world said, "Seriously, this needs some work," I'd probably thank them for taking the time to comment, but wouldn't value the feedback very much because, wow, vague. :/
Some writers get personally offended when someone offers concrit to a story which has already been published. I don't get this either, because pretty much any mistake I made once, I might well make again and hearing about it even after the fact lets me make a note of it and take care not to make it again next time, even if I can't edit the story which was just published. Learning from my earlier mistakes is always desirable, and I honestly don't care who it is who points me toward the lesson.
Maybe it helps that I "grew up" as a writer in some fairly intense workshop environments. When you get serious pros and intense hopefuls all in the same bucket and have them tearing apart each other's stuff, with the idea that it's better for your workshop peers to spot something than that editor you're hoping will offer you a contract, you learn pretty quickly that concrit is gold and that excessive ego does nothing but block you from any hope of being published. (And in all honesty, the old GEnie SFRT was not for the faint of heart nor the thin of skin, whether you were in the workshops or not.) I grew an adamantium hide in the early years of my online participation as a writer, and while I'll admit that's an advantage which not everyone has, I can only suggest that anyone who wants to be a professional writer grow one of their own as quickly as they can manage. This is not a good business for the delicate or sensitive to be in.
Maybe it's the fact that I value my writing, my skill and my hope of improving both, much more highly than I value the delicacy of my writerly feelings. Sure, I wince for a moment if someone says they didn't care for one of my stories, and I get horribly embarassed if someone points out an obvious flaw I missed. But I want to learn and grow as a writer more than I want to avoid those wincing embarassments, by a few orders of magnitude. I want to know what people think and why, and what they think is problematic or just plain wrong, and the why of that too.
Anyone who can clearly explain what they liked and disliked, what they thought was going on and what they thought was going to happen next, where they laughed or winced or gasped, where I fooled them and where they saw right through my attempted misdirection, what they think worked or didn't work with specific examples and reasons for it all -- anyone who gives me that kind of feedback is going to be one of my favorite people ever, and I don't care who it is or whether I know them or whether they're a writer or whether they're someone who wandered by and posted anonymously. It's the data I value, not the source. Good, clear, useful data is always valuable and always makes itself obvious; I don't need an attached name or title or resume to help me decide whether the data is useful.
Or at least, that's how I see it. How about you?
Angie
Monday, July 14, 2008
Review of "A Spirit of Vengeance"
I got a wonderful four-flute review of "A Spirit of Vengeance" from Singapore Sling over on Cocktail Reviews!
Josh, an artist, comes home from an exhibition and learns that his lover, Kevin – also an artist – has been murdered in the home they share with Josh’s actress sister, Kat. The killing appears to have been done by a homophobic gang, but the police can’t find anything to go on.
While he’s coming to terms with his grief, Josh hears Kevin’s voice and feels a wind blowing around him indoors. Kevin urges Josh to catch his killers and get revenge. At first Josh thinks he’s gone crazy, but soon Kevin is coming to him in dreams that feel very real. Kevin reveals that Oscar, his agent, murdered him when Kevin started to suspect Oscar of defrauding him.
Can Josh find a way to unmask Oscar as the killer – or will listening to the advice of a ghost lead him and Kat into danger?
This novelette had a most interesting premise. The opening was powerful, full of raw emotion as Josh struggles to deal with Kevin’s death. The ghost story begins tentatively, with Kevin’s spirit at first so full of rage that he scares Josh. Kevin’s frustration with his new spirit form and his desperation to make Josh believe what’s happening is both sad and touching.
Josh is a likeable hero, numb with grief yet still able to reach out to his sister, Kat, and share in her small triumphs. His longing for Kevin is one of the driving emotions in this story, and his fear of letting go and losing Kevin forever is very moving.
Ms Benedetti gives the reader a different yet satisfying story. My only complaint is that I wish there’d have been more of it – this could easily have been a novella!
This is so awesome, I'm going to be beaming for days!
Angie
Josh, an artist, comes home from an exhibition and learns that his lover, Kevin – also an artist – has been murdered in the home they share with Josh’s actress sister, Kat. The killing appears to have been done by a homophobic gang, but the police can’t find anything to go on.
While he’s coming to terms with his grief, Josh hears Kevin’s voice and feels a wind blowing around him indoors. Kevin urges Josh to catch his killers and get revenge. At first Josh thinks he’s gone crazy, but soon Kevin is coming to him in dreams that feel very real. Kevin reveals that Oscar, his agent, murdered him when Kevin started to suspect Oscar of defrauding him.
Can Josh find a way to unmask Oscar as the killer – or will listening to the advice of a ghost lead him and Kat into danger?
This novelette had a most interesting premise. The opening was powerful, full of raw emotion as Josh struggles to deal with Kevin’s death. The ghost story begins tentatively, with Kevin’s spirit at first so full of rage that he scares Josh. Kevin’s frustration with his new spirit form and his desperation to make Josh believe what’s happening is both sad and touching.
Josh is a likeable hero, numb with grief yet still able to reach out to his sister, Kat, and share in her small triumphs. His longing for Kevin is one of the driving emotions in this story, and his fear of letting go and losing Kevin forever is very moving.
Ms Benedetti gives the reader a different yet satisfying story. My only complaint is that I wish there’d have been more of it – this could easily have been a novella!
This is so awesome, I'm going to be beaming for days!
Angie
Friday, July 11, 2008
Still Playing the Zero-Sum Game
I read a blog post today which really annoyed me. I'm not going to link to it because it's not that particular writer who's the problem; this was just the last breeze that pushed me over the cliff. There are plenty of people trodding this well-paved path, and I'm not going to point a finger at the person who had the bad luck to be the most recent traveller.
Everyone knows the frustration of having their own favorite kind of book (or anything else) fall from favor. A year ago, or a decade ago, the stores were full of your favorite read and you could wallow around in it as much as your wallet could bear. Then later on, the market changed, trends wended their way onward and suddenly the abundant flow narrowed to a bare trickle. We've all been there, and yeah, it's upsetting.
Why is it, though, that whenever someone complains about the problem they're having finding their own favorite kind of book, they do it by ranting about how there are "too many" of whatever other type is currently popular? Instead of just saying that they wish there were more books about lawyers and bankers, they grouch that there are too many books about vampires and pirates, implying that most of this trash should be cleared away to make room for the good stuff.
As someone who likes vampires and pirates (or whatever) I find this rather offensive. Why do people who complain that there aren't enough of their favorite books always come and attack my favorite books?
The writer who set me off allowed as how it's acceptable for there to be "a few" of these other books that she doesn't care for, the historicals and paranormals and fantasies and SF books, so long as they're unique and well-executed. (By her own standards, I assume.)
Wow. Generous of her. I'll have to remember to send her a thank-you note for declaring it allowable for me have "a few" of my favorite subgenres to read, and for looking out for my reading pleasure by policing the quality of those few books.
Personally, I'm not at all into media tie-in books. I used to read some of the old Trek Classic novels when they first started coming out, but I drifted away long ago and never got into any of the newer series novels, nor any of the D&D novels or the novels based on computer games or anything else of that sort. And yet tie-ins are... [squint/cogitate] I think it was three shelf sections of the SF and Fantasy area, when I was in a Borders last week, and maybe four. That was at least a third of the entire space allocated for SF/F books, and I wasn't interested in any of it. The situation has been the same for quite a number of years, tie-in books having become more and more popular over the last three decades or so since I first noticed them.
It's never occurred to me, though, to complain that the store shouldn't carry so many tie-ins, nor that the publishers shouldn't publish so many. If there are people who read them, that's enough reason for them to be published and sold. What I want are more of the kinds of books I do like. If I can't find them in that bookstore, then I'll find them in another, or at Amazon, or somewhere else online. If there aren't enough being published then I can complain to the publisher (or just rant to the blogosphere) that there should be more. But I'm not going to point my finger at the media tie-ins, or any of the other genres or subgenres of fiction I'm not interested in and say, "There! Give me their space in the bookstores and their spots on your publishing schedule! I don't like those books, therefore you should dump them and publish/sell my favorites instead!"
I mean, seriously, that's just obnoxious, you know?
I get what it's like to want publishers to sell more of a certain kind of book. My column on Wednesday was based on the idea that the New York publishers should be selling gay romances, that there are plenty of readers who want them and the publishers could make some good money selling them. But it never crossed my mind to point a finger at some other subgenre within romance that the publishers should sell less of to make room for them.
This really isn't a zero-sum game. If there are audiences for books about vampires and pirates, and for books about ranchers and doctors, then any financially sound publisher will be able to publish both without eliminating either, given a few years to work up to it. Having more kinds of books, all of which sell, is good for the businesses, as well as being good for the readers. And if there are more books being sold than the bookstores can carry, they can build bigger stores -- bookstores the size of Borders or B&N didn't exist when I was a kid, but someone along the line decided there were enough books being sold to justify building them -- or they can sell online. There you go -- room for everyone.
I really hope the woman whose blog post got me going today gets more of her own favorite kinds of books. If she likes more "normal" romances, grounded in reality and telling stories about the kinds of people she might know herself, then that's cool and she should be able to read as many as she likes of those stories. I can hope the publishers do start selling her more of them soon because I know that they can do that without having to eliminate the romances about vampires and aliens and mages that I like to read. It's not a zero-sum game, and we should both be able to have what we want without trying to stamp out each other's favorites.
Angie
Everyone knows the frustration of having their own favorite kind of book (or anything else) fall from favor. A year ago, or a decade ago, the stores were full of your favorite read and you could wallow around in it as much as your wallet could bear. Then later on, the market changed, trends wended their way onward and suddenly the abundant flow narrowed to a bare trickle. We've all been there, and yeah, it's upsetting.
Why is it, though, that whenever someone complains about the problem they're having finding their own favorite kind of book, they do it by ranting about how there are "too many" of whatever other type is currently popular? Instead of just saying that they wish there were more books about lawyers and bankers, they grouch that there are too many books about vampires and pirates, implying that most of this trash should be cleared away to make room for the good stuff.
As someone who likes vampires and pirates (or whatever) I find this rather offensive. Why do people who complain that there aren't enough of their favorite books always come and attack my favorite books?
The writer who set me off allowed as how it's acceptable for there to be "a few" of these other books that she doesn't care for, the historicals and paranormals and fantasies and SF books, so long as they're unique and well-executed. (By her own standards, I assume.)
Wow. Generous of her. I'll have to remember to send her a thank-you note for declaring it allowable for me have "a few" of my favorite subgenres to read, and for looking out for my reading pleasure by policing the quality of those few books.
Personally, I'm not at all into media tie-in books. I used to read some of the old Trek Classic novels when they first started coming out, but I drifted away long ago and never got into any of the newer series novels, nor any of the D&D novels or the novels based on computer games or anything else of that sort. And yet tie-ins are... [squint/cogitate] I think it was three shelf sections of the SF and Fantasy area, when I was in a Borders last week, and maybe four. That was at least a third of the entire space allocated for SF/F books, and I wasn't interested in any of it. The situation has been the same for quite a number of years, tie-in books having become more and more popular over the last three decades or so since I first noticed them.
It's never occurred to me, though, to complain that the store shouldn't carry so many tie-ins, nor that the publishers shouldn't publish so many. If there are people who read them, that's enough reason for them to be published and sold. What I want are more of the kinds of books I do like. If I can't find them in that bookstore, then I'll find them in another, or at Amazon, or somewhere else online. If there aren't enough being published then I can complain to the publisher (or just rant to the blogosphere) that there should be more. But I'm not going to point my finger at the media tie-ins, or any of the other genres or subgenres of fiction I'm not interested in and say, "There! Give me their space in the bookstores and their spots on your publishing schedule! I don't like those books, therefore you should dump them and publish/sell my favorites instead!"
I mean, seriously, that's just obnoxious, you know?
I get what it's like to want publishers to sell more of a certain kind of book. My column on Wednesday was based on the idea that the New York publishers should be selling gay romances, that there are plenty of readers who want them and the publishers could make some good money selling them. But it never crossed my mind to point a finger at some other subgenre within romance that the publishers should sell less of to make room for them.
This really isn't a zero-sum game. If there are audiences for books about vampires and pirates, and for books about ranchers and doctors, then any financially sound publisher will be able to publish both without eliminating either, given a few years to work up to it. Having more kinds of books, all of which sell, is good for the businesses, as well as being good for the readers. And if there are more books being sold than the bookstores can carry, they can build bigger stores -- bookstores the size of Borders or B&N didn't exist when I was a kid, but someone along the line decided there were enough books being sold to justify building them -- or they can sell online. There you go -- room for everyone.
I really hope the woman whose blog post got me going today gets more of her own favorite kinds of books. If she likes more "normal" romances, grounded in reality and telling stories about the kinds of people she might know herself, then that's cool and she should be able to read as many as she likes of those stories. I can hope the publishers do start selling her more of them soon because I know that they can do that without having to eliminate the romances about vampires and aliens and mages that I like to read. It's not a zero-sum game, and we should both be able to have what we want without trying to stamp out each other's favorites.
Angie
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
New Column
I just posted a new column on Romancing the Blog. This time around I'm talking about an issue brought up during a discussion on Torquere's Yahoo group regarding the reasons why the editor-in-chief of Ace and Roc thinks there's no print market for m/m romances. She's just repeating the party line which is passed around the New York publishers, but it seems to me that the basic premise behind that party line -- that women won't buy m/m romances because they want to insert themselves into the story in the heroine's place, and since m/m books don't have a heroine there's no part for the reader to "play" -- is deeply flawed. If it's impossible for the (presumably female) het romance reader to enjoy an m/m romance because there's no female protag, that implies that it's impossible for anyone to enjoy reading a book where there's no same-gender protag. Am I the only one whose eyes cross at that particular piece of logic...? [squint]
Aside from the fact that most of the m/m romances being sold right now -- in print as well as e-pub -- are purchased by women. [cough]
Anyway, I'm collecting data from readers -- come give me your two cents' worth. :)
Angie
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Remodelling
So I'm working on this story. [headdesk] It's a contemporary, and if I ever get it finished and if it gets accepted it'll be my first non-magical contemporary to be published. It'll also be my first BDSM story to be published, although it's just light bondage -- very light -- so that's not a huge deal.
The problem is that I looked at the finished story and needed to change the setting, which was a movie location, which was just too... too. :/ Of course, setting sets the tone for a story and there are some things your characters can do in Setting A that they can't do in Setting Q, so I couldn't just reach into a hat and pick out a new setting; whatever I chose had to fit the plot and the circumstances. Specifically, I needed a setting where the characters could've known each other for a while, and might've been together to know each other for a while some time in the sorta-recentish past, and are now together again, but where they don't live near each other to see each other regularly, or at least between Last Time and This Time. That gap is important.
I pondered for a while and discarded some possibilities and finally came up with an SF convention. You can run into people once a year, or even less often depending on which cons you go to and whether you're a regular or just show up every now and then. I figured I could make them both pros -- one a writer and the other an artist, so a lot of it would depend on where they were invited as guests any given year; if they didn't actually live in the same area, it could very well be years between the times they saw each other. It'd be hard to stretch out the individual meetings for more than a few days each -- maybe four max, unless I wanted to make it WorldCon or something similar, in which case a week at the outside would work -- and that was a bit problematic, but it seemed I could make it work well enough. Okay, cool, convention it is.
Ever torn out a setting and installed a new one...? It's sort of like jacking up a house, jackhammering the foundation completely out, then pouring a new one with a slightly different layout here and there, then trying to set the house back on it while remodelling said house enough so that the walls actually match up with the new bits of the foundation. [headdesk] I did it, though, went through the story and rewrote a lot of the beginning where things were set up and established, changed bits here and there throughout the rest, smoothed it all over with sandpaper and tah-dah! Done!
Except not quite. :/ I kept looking at it, reading it over, and it just doesn't work.
I mean, the story works for me, but then I'm intimately familiar with SF conventions. I went to my first one as a teenager and was a gofer at that first con. I've been on staff I don't know how many times, from mid-size conventions to a couple of WorldCons, and was on the staff of a professional conference for just over ten years just for variety. I even chaired a major regional twice. But what's incredibly familiar to me is still an exotic locale to most people, and in order to make this work I'd have had to insert a lot more description and explanation.
Which I could've done, certainly, but when you get down to it, the setting just isn't that important a part of this particular story. I mean, yes, it dictates some of the plot points (which was why I couldn't just grab any old setting in the first place) but aside from that, it's not all that important for the reader to focus on the setting, beyond just being aware of where the characters are. Heck, somewhere between half and two-thirds of the story takes place in a bedroom and that could be anywhere. :P If I'd given the SF convention setting as much description and explanation as it would've needed, the sheer verbage involved would've given the readers the impression that the setting was a lot more important than it really was. The whole story would've felt unbalanced. [headdesk]
I do love conventions and I'll probably set a story there eventually, but this isn't the time to do it.
Back to the jacks and cranes and jackhammers.
I thought about it a while longer and finally came up with another possibility. I'm going to put the story in a much more mundane setting -- it'll start out at a local high-end gym (which everyone's at least reasonably familiar with, even if they've never actually been to one) and have one of the characters be a regular there (so he's been there all along) while the other worked there evenings and weekends through high school and the first four years of college, then moved away to go to grad school and such. That gives me the separation over time that I need to make the story work, and by the time the two characters hit the second guy's house (and bedroom) it'll all be basically the same from there on.
I'm pretty sure it'll work this time. Really. Now to go do the heavy lifting. Again.
Angie, rolling up her sleeves
The problem is that I looked at the finished story and needed to change the setting, which was a movie location, which was just too... too. :/ Of course, setting sets the tone for a story and there are some things your characters can do in Setting A that they can't do in Setting Q, so I couldn't just reach into a hat and pick out a new setting; whatever I chose had to fit the plot and the circumstances. Specifically, I needed a setting where the characters could've known each other for a while, and might've been together to know each other for a while some time in the sorta-recentish past, and are now together again, but where they don't live near each other to see each other regularly, or at least between Last Time and This Time. That gap is important.
I pondered for a while and discarded some possibilities and finally came up with an SF convention. You can run into people once a year, or even less often depending on which cons you go to and whether you're a regular or just show up every now and then. I figured I could make them both pros -- one a writer and the other an artist, so a lot of it would depend on where they were invited as guests any given year; if they didn't actually live in the same area, it could very well be years between the times they saw each other. It'd be hard to stretch out the individual meetings for more than a few days each -- maybe four max, unless I wanted to make it WorldCon or something similar, in which case a week at the outside would work -- and that was a bit problematic, but it seemed I could make it work well enough. Okay, cool, convention it is.
Ever torn out a setting and installed a new one...? It's sort of like jacking up a house, jackhammering the foundation completely out, then pouring a new one with a slightly different layout here and there, then trying to set the house back on it while remodelling said house enough so that the walls actually match up with the new bits of the foundation. [headdesk] I did it, though, went through the story and rewrote a lot of the beginning where things were set up and established, changed bits here and there throughout the rest, smoothed it all over with sandpaper and tah-dah! Done!
Except not quite. :/ I kept looking at it, reading it over, and it just doesn't work.
I mean, the story works for me, but then I'm intimately familiar with SF conventions. I went to my first one as a teenager and was a gofer at that first con. I've been on staff I don't know how many times, from mid-size conventions to a couple of WorldCons, and was on the staff of a professional conference for just over ten years just for variety. I even chaired a major regional twice. But what's incredibly familiar to me is still an exotic locale to most people, and in order to make this work I'd have had to insert a lot more description and explanation.
Which I could've done, certainly, but when you get down to it, the setting just isn't that important a part of this particular story. I mean, yes, it dictates some of the plot points (which was why I couldn't just grab any old setting in the first place) but aside from that, it's not all that important for the reader to focus on the setting, beyond just being aware of where the characters are. Heck, somewhere between half and two-thirds of the story takes place in a bedroom and that could be anywhere. :P If I'd given the SF convention setting as much description and explanation as it would've needed, the sheer verbage involved would've given the readers the impression that the setting was a lot more important than it really was. The whole story would've felt unbalanced. [headdesk]
I do love conventions and I'll probably set a story there eventually, but this isn't the time to do it.
Back to the jacks and cranes and jackhammers.
I thought about it a while longer and finally came up with another possibility. I'm going to put the story in a much more mundane setting -- it'll start out at a local high-end gym (which everyone's at least reasonably familiar with, even if they've never actually been to one) and have one of the characters be a regular there (so he's been there all along) while the other worked there evenings and weekends through high school and the first four years of college, then moved away to go to grad school and such. That gives me the separation over time that I need to make the story work, and by the time the two characters hit the second guy's house (and bedroom) it'll all be basically the same from there on.
I'm pretty sure it'll work this time. Really. Now to go do the heavy lifting. Again.
Angie, rolling up her sleeves
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
New Computer
OK, so I have a new computer, a Dell XPS 630I. It came on Saturday and it's been sitting in its box all weekend because it's been too friggin' hot to do anything, so Jim pulled it out tonight. Although technically I still haven't taken possession -- it's over on Jim's desk, where he was working on it to get everything set up and transferred over, using this cool utility called PC Mover, which apparently works beautifully.
It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, seriously, LOL! It's a "gaming rig" and is pimped up with enough lights to bring in a 747 for a landing. And it comes with its own wiping cloth so you can keep the ultra-shiny plastic parts ultra-shiny. [facepalm]
This is basically it, although my lights are blue instead of red.
Mind you, I wasn't really asking for a new computer. The old one works fine and I like it perfectly well. And besides, I enjoy switching computers about as much as I enjoy moving house, which is to say I'd rather have the flu or sunburn or food poisoning. But Dell recently announced that after a certain date (which I think was some time last week) they'd no longer ship their high-end systems loaded with XP. :( They're perfectly willing to sell you a piece of crap made of Lincoln Logs with XP on it, since Vista (among its many flaws and sins) is a massive system hog and simply won't run on those, but any computer which can run Vista will be shipped with Vista, period. Microsoft's been leaning on them or something. [sigh]
My old computer's about five years old and would need replacing in another year or two anyway, so Jim figured it'd be better to get one now, with XP, than to wait and be forced to go with Vista. I had to agree, so here we are. The new box has a four-year warrantee, so hopefully it'll get me through the years of darkness until Microsoft pulls its head out of its corporate ass and comes up with an OS that actually, like, sorta works. [crossed fingers]
Anyway, the new baby's still over on Jim's desk. I've been dinking with it for a bit and everything looks good, although the next question is how much of my software (read: commercial games) are going to detect the new system as soon as I fire 'em up and squawk at me, requiring reinstalls. Not much, I hope. [crossed fingers] If everything's okay, though, we'll swap it for my old one over on my desk in the next day or two, and that'll be that. Keep a set of virtual fingers crossed for me. [wry smile]
Angie
It looks like something out of a science fiction movie, seriously, LOL! It's a "gaming rig" and is pimped up with enough lights to bring in a 747 for a landing. And it comes with its own wiping cloth so you can keep the ultra-shiny plastic parts ultra-shiny. [facepalm]
This is basically it, although my lights are blue instead of red.
Mind you, I wasn't really asking for a new computer. The old one works fine and I like it perfectly well. And besides, I enjoy switching computers about as much as I enjoy moving house, which is to say I'd rather have the flu or sunburn or food poisoning. But Dell recently announced that after a certain date (which I think was some time last week) they'd no longer ship their high-end systems loaded with XP. :( They're perfectly willing to sell you a piece of crap made of Lincoln Logs with XP on it, since Vista (among its many flaws and sins) is a massive system hog and simply won't run on those, but any computer which can run Vista will be shipped with Vista, period. Microsoft's been leaning on them or something. [sigh]
My old computer's about five years old and would need replacing in another year or two anyway, so Jim figured it'd be better to get one now, with XP, than to wait and be forced to go with Vista. I had to agree, so here we are. The new box has a four-year warrantee, so hopefully it'll get me through the years of darkness until Microsoft pulls its head out of its corporate ass and comes up with an OS that actually, like, sorta works. [crossed fingers]
Anyway, the new baby's still over on Jim's desk. I've been dinking with it for a bit and everything looks good, although the next question is how much of my software (read: commercial games) are going to detect the new system as soon as I fire 'em up and squawk at me, requiring reinstalls. Not much, I hope. [crossed fingers] If everything's okay, though, we'll swap it for my old one over on my desk in the next day or two, and that'll be that. Keep a set of virtual fingers crossed for me. [wry smile]
Angie
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Redeeming Fake Sins
Dakota Flint started a discussion about redemption in romantic fiction today, and I started writing a comment. Of course, me being me, my thoughts wandered down the road and over the hill, then planted themselves down and started growing toward a thousand words, so I decided to post it here instead.
I like redemption as a theme or plot device in romantic fiction, especially when Character A thinks they've done something horrible, but it takes Character B's POV to show them that it wasn't -- that it wasn't horrible or it wasn't their fault or every other option was worse or whatever. This is common in romance (and in het romance it's usually the Guy who's the one tortured with the whatever guilt) and can work really well as a device for bringing the characters together and deepening their relationship. Unfortunately, some writers don't seem to have figured out how to balance the idea of a character who's stuck in one POV and needs to be shown another way of looking at something, with the idea of a character who's, like, not a total moron.
I just finished a het romance where the Guy has these massive issues about what a coward he is, and how it's his fault his parents were killed and all. When he was a kid, some enemy assassins attacked their home to take out his family. His father shoved him into a crawlspace or something and locked the grate so he couldn't get out, just before the bad guys showed up in the room. So the Guy was right there, listening and sort of watching through the grate while his parents were slaughtered. He was screaming to be let out while it happened, and there was so much noise from what was going on that the bad guys didn't hear him, but as soon as things quieted down (and everyone was dead), he shut up too so they wouldn't find him. He's felt this horrible guilt for that all his life, thinking he should have kept yelling so the assassins would have let him out so he could fight them.
Right. Multiple assassins versus a twelve-year-old. Yeah, that would've worked.
And even after the Girl pointed out that he would certainly have been killed to no purpose, he was still arguing that it didn't matter, he was a coward and should've fought them, so it's his fault his parents are dead, etc., like he's just not getting it. He's very touched that she's trying to defend him (to himself) but he's not buying it at all.
So of course at this point I'm eyerolling and have a strong impulse to work the guy over with a baseball bat in hope of jarring loose a few braincells, 'cause dude, seriously. :/ I mean, I could understand him feeling guilty -- survivor's guilt doesn't require any specific fault, nor does rationality play much of a part. And it would've been easy enough for the writer to have him say, "Well, yeah, you're right of course. There would've been no point in my getting killed too. But I can't help feeling awful and guilty about it." That would've worked, showing that he does have a brain in his head and that it can function when prompted (although I think most people would've come to this realization themselves by the time they hit adulthood) but that his head and his gut are still in conflict. He still has issues, but he knows he has issues, and that what he feels doesn't make any objective sense. That would've been a nice conflict thread, as he worked to get past the guilt.
Instead, in this book, the guy just comes across like an idiot, and an unbelievable one at that. And I've seen it over and over, where a character insists on carrying this completely ridiculous guilt, insisting that no, it really was their fault that whatever happened. I mean, sure, there actually are people who are just that messed up by their experiences, but they have massive issues and if a main character is that messed up, dealing with it pretty much has to be one of the major focal points of the story. If it's not, if it's just presented at face value -- "Yes, adult Bob still believes, with full awareness, that it's his fault his baby brother was killed by that pack of rabid pit bulls, despite the fact that he was only three when it happened," -- my connection with the character (and the story, and the writer) just breaks down. I can't buy that a strong, reasonably smart character would believe this, and I can't understand why this writer would present a character who did believe that as strong or reasonably smart, much less as classic Hero material. The way it's usually presented, it feels like the reader is supposed to somehow admire this character for being Just So Responsible that he's taking all this unearned guilt, and in a romance, the (mostly female) readers are supposed to want to cuddle and nurture him or whatever. It doesn't work, at least with me; I just want to smack him.
What it comes down to is that this is a chunk of character development which is too often done badly. In order to set up a significant redemption moment, the character has to believe that he's done something significantly bad. Whether he has or not is up to the writer -- I'm all for misunderstandings or set-ups or whatever -- but he has to believe he's done something bad enough that the redemption is important. But it also has to be something that is redeemable, whether the character eventually realizes that he didn't do anything that terrible, or whether someone important to the character gives him forgiveness, or somehow helps him forgive himself, or however it's worked out. The sin has to be significant in order for the redemption to be significant.
Setting up a straw-man sin -- OMG, I just stood there in my playpen and let those dogs eat the baby! -- deflates the whole thing. When the second character points out that, "Umm, dude, you were three. You couldn't have done anything," then if the first character does a facepalm and suddenly gets it, that's still pretty weak because a normal person would've realized, well before adulthood, that no, a three-year-old couldn't have done anything, and that while he might still feel guilty, he isn't actually guilty. But if, after having the obvious pointed out, the first character still refuses to acknowledge that his three-year-old self wasn't guilty of anything except being three, that's even worse; it says something about the character which needs to be dealt with as its own issue, and if it's not then that's a major flaw in the story. Instead of feeling sympathy for the character, or feeling happy relief when the redemption happens, I just feel impatient about the whole thing and sarcastic thoughts start running through my head, about the character and the writer both.
The whole sin/redemption device can be very powerful, but the sin component has to be strong. Either the sin itself has to be real and significant, or the circumstances which led the character to wrongly believe in his own guilt have to be legitimate, something that's clearly reasonable for an intelligent person to believe and be fooled or confused by. If the sin and guilt are lame or unbelievable, then the whole device breaks down, and the readers' response isn't going to be what the writer had hoped.
Angie
I like redemption as a theme or plot device in romantic fiction, especially when Character A thinks they've done something horrible, but it takes Character B's POV to show them that it wasn't -- that it wasn't horrible or it wasn't their fault or every other option was worse or whatever. This is common in romance (and in het romance it's usually the Guy who's the one tortured with the whatever guilt) and can work really well as a device for bringing the characters together and deepening their relationship. Unfortunately, some writers don't seem to have figured out how to balance the idea of a character who's stuck in one POV and needs to be shown another way of looking at something, with the idea of a character who's, like, not a total moron.
I just finished a het romance where the Guy has these massive issues about what a coward he is, and how it's his fault his parents were killed and all. When he was a kid, some enemy assassins attacked their home to take out his family. His father shoved him into a crawlspace or something and locked the grate so he couldn't get out, just before the bad guys showed up in the room. So the Guy was right there, listening and sort of watching through the grate while his parents were slaughtered. He was screaming to be let out while it happened, and there was so much noise from what was going on that the bad guys didn't hear him, but as soon as things quieted down (and everyone was dead), he shut up too so they wouldn't find him. He's felt this horrible guilt for that all his life, thinking he should have kept yelling so the assassins would have let him out so he could fight them.
Right. Multiple assassins versus a twelve-year-old. Yeah, that would've worked.
And even after the Girl pointed out that he would certainly have been killed to no purpose, he was still arguing that it didn't matter, he was a coward and should've fought them, so it's his fault his parents are dead, etc., like he's just not getting it. He's very touched that she's trying to defend him (to himself) but he's not buying it at all.
So of course at this point I'm eyerolling and have a strong impulse to work the guy over with a baseball bat in hope of jarring loose a few braincells, 'cause dude, seriously. :/ I mean, I could understand him feeling guilty -- survivor's guilt doesn't require any specific fault, nor does rationality play much of a part. And it would've been easy enough for the writer to have him say, "Well, yeah, you're right of course. There would've been no point in my getting killed too. But I can't help feeling awful and guilty about it." That would've worked, showing that he does have a brain in his head and that it can function when prompted (although I think most people would've come to this realization themselves by the time they hit adulthood) but that his head and his gut are still in conflict. He still has issues, but he knows he has issues, and that what he feels doesn't make any objective sense. That would've been a nice conflict thread, as he worked to get past the guilt.
Instead, in this book, the guy just comes across like an idiot, and an unbelievable one at that. And I've seen it over and over, where a character insists on carrying this completely ridiculous guilt, insisting that no, it really was their fault that whatever happened. I mean, sure, there actually are people who are just that messed up by their experiences, but they have massive issues and if a main character is that messed up, dealing with it pretty much has to be one of the major focal points of the story. If it's not, if it's just presented at face value -- "Yes, adult Bob still believes, with full awareness, that it's his fault his baby brother was killed by that pack of rabid pit bulls, despite the fact that he was only three when it happened," -- my connection with the character (and the story, and the writer) just breaks down. I can't buy that a strong, reasonably smart character would believe this, and I can't understand why this writer would present a character who did believe that as strong or reasonably smart, much less as classic Hero material. The way it's usually presented, it feels like the reader is supposed to somehow admire this character for being Just So Responsible that he's taking all this unearned guilt, and in a romance, the (mostly female) readers are supposed to want to cuddle and nurture him or whatever. It doesn't work, at least with me; I just want to smack him.
What it comes down to is that this is a chunk of character development which is too often done badly. In order to set up a significant redemption moment, the character has to believe that he's done something significantly bad. Whether he has or not is up to the writer -- I'm all for misunderstandings or set-ups or whatever -- but he has to believe he's done something bad enough that the redemption is important. But it also has to be something that is redeemable, whether the character eventually realizes that he didn't do anything that terrible, or whether someone important to the character gives him forgiveness, or somehow helps him forgive himself, or however it's worked out. The sin has to be significant in order for the redemption to be significant.
Setting up a straw-man sin -- OMG, I just stood there in my playpen and let those dogs eat the baby! -- deflates the whole thing. When the second character points out that, "Umm, dude, you were three. You couldn't have done anything," then if the first character does a facepalm and suddenly gets it, that's still pretty weak because a normal person would've realized, well before adulthood, that no, a three-year-old couldn't have done anything, and that while he might still feel guilty, he isn't actually guilty. But if, after having the obvious pointed out, the first character still refuses to acknowledge that his three-year-old self wasn't guilty of anything except being three, that's even worse; it says something about the character which needs to be dealt with as its own issue, and if it's not then that's a major flaw in the story. Instead of feeling sympathy for the character, or feeling happy relief when the redemption happens, I just feel impatient about the whole thing and sarcastic thoughts start running through my head, about the character and the writer both.
The whole sin/redemption device can be very powerful, but the sin component has to be strong. Either the sin itself has to be real and significant, or the circumstances which led the character to wrongly believe in his own guilt have to be legitimate, something that's clearly reasonable for an intelligent person to believe and be fooled or confused by. If the sin and guilt are lame or unbelievable, then the whole device breaks down, and the readers' response isn't going to be what the writer had hoped.
Angie
Monday, June 9, 2008
Review of "The Joy of Exchanging Gifts"
Beth Anne at Joyfully Reviewed wrote a review of my Holiday Sip, "The Joy of Exchanging Gifts." She said:
"Anthropologist Lowell, is studying the Enknopans, and though he’s made a good friend of Tiklup, Lowell is excluded from an Enknopan 'turning year' celebration because of the Enknopan restriction on outsider’s participation. To participate or observe, one needs to be related to one of the Enknopans.
To show no hard feelings for the exclusion, Lowell tries to share his Santa tradition by leaving a surprise gift for Tiklup, in a traditional Santa method. Only issue for Lowell is the architecture of the Enknopan homes. No windows for Santa, so Lowell uses the 'house’s smoke hole' and becomes stuck in the chimney. As Tiklup and his friends return and discover Lowell’s predicament, a delightfully sexy gift exchange commences all taking place while Lowell is still stuck in the chimney.
Do you ever just laugh out loud while reading? The Joy of Exchanging Gifts had me alternatively laughing out loud and then just plain giggling for the naughtiness. I know it’s a Nice Sip, but for me, Lowell and his friends are just plain naughty, in a very nice way! The Joy of Exchanging Gifts is a hilarious, fun, sexy off-world read!!"
Thanks so much to Beth Anne; I'm glad she enjoyed my story. :)
Angie
"Anthropologist Lowell, is studying the Enknopans, and though he’s made a good friend of Tiklup, Lowell is excluded from an Enknopan 'turning year' celebration because of the Enknopan restriction on outsider’s participation. To participate or observe, one needs to be related to one of the Enknopans.
To show no hard feelings for the exclusion, Lowell tries to share his Santa tradition by leaving a surprise gift for Tiklup, in a traditional Santa method. Only issue for Lowell is the architecture of the Enknopan homes. No windows for Santa, so Lowell uses the 'house’s smoke hole' and becomes stuck in the chimney. As Tiklup and his friends return and discover Lowell’s predicament, a delightfully sexy gift exchange commences all taking place while Lowell is still stuck in the chimney.
Do you ever just laugh out loud while reading? The Joy of Exchanging Gifts had me alternatively laughing out loud and then just plain giggling for the naughtiness. I know it’s a Nice Sip, but for me, Lowell and his friends are just plain naughty, in a very nice way! The Joy of Exchanging Gifts is a hilarious, fun, sexy off-world read!!"
Thanks so much to Beth Anne; I'm glad she enjoyed my story. :)
Angie
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Training Up the Next Generation of Plagiarists
Someone over on LJ posted a link to this news story, and I just had to shake my head.
To summarize, Christine Pelton was a science teacher at Piper High School in Kansas. Her sophomore biology class had a big project (called the "Leaf Project") to do, for fifty percent of their grade. Ms. Pelton was determined that no one in her classroom would get away with cheating, and before the project began, all the students and their parents had to sign a contract which included, among other things: "Cheating and plagiarism will result in the failure of the assignment. It is expected that all work turned in is completely their own." And as anyone who's made it to the sophomore level of high school (and certainly anyone who functions in the adult world, as all these students' parents theoretically do) should be able to figure out, if you fail a project that's fifty percent of your grade, then even if you ace everything else, you're gonna fail the class.
Simple, right?
Well, apparently this was a bit too complicated for some of the students and their parents to comprehend.
When the papers came in, Ms. Pelton noticed some lines which didn't sound like something her students would say. She turned to the internet, and discovered that twenty-eight of her students (almost a quarter of the sophomore class at Piper High) had committed plagiarism.
From one student: "I was kind of upset ‘cause I was pretty sure I did’t do it," he says, claiming he copied from the Internet but didn’t plagiarize.
"I put that as two different sentences," he says. "So it’s not like I copied it straight from the Web site. I changed it into two different sentences."
Oh, well, so long as he split the line he copied word-for-word into two sentences.... [eyeroll]
Bad enough that twenty-some percent of the sophomore class were cheaters. Just to compound the problem, when Ms. Pelton did as she had said she would from the beginning, and failed the projects of the cheating students, their parents -- rather than being outraged at the cheating and grounding their kids till they were thirty -- rose up in angry protest against Ms. Pelton and took the matter to the school board.
Then to pour gasoline onto the situation and set fire to it, the school board caved in to the parents' demands, and intervened. They declared that the Leaf Project was worth a much smaller percentage of the students' total grade, so even the students who'd cheated and failed the project would pass the class if they'd been doing well otherwise.
Wow, I'll bet those students will learn a huge lesson from that.
Seriously, just what the heck did those parents think? That they were doing their kids any favors? That they were teaching them anything positive? That they were helping their children? Really? Let's look at some statements from the parents:
"The problem in her classroom wasn’t with the students, but with the teacher," says one parent.
"Plagiarism is black on this side, white on this side, with a whole lotta gray in the middle," said another parent.
...
According to some of the parents of the students she failed, Pelton missed a "teachable moment."
"She’s uncovered plagiarism," says a parent. "That’s great, that’s wonderful, let’s give her an attaboy. Let’s stop, put on a seminar, teach these kids exactly what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and then let them take their new knowledge, go back, and rework their projects and resubmit them. They missed their teachable moment; I truly believe that."
Wow.
Any bets on how many of these students, or their siblings, or the students' kids later on, will be in the middle of a similar cheating/copying/plagiarism situation again some time, arguing indignantly that they did absolutely nothing wrong, that the people using the P-word are being harsh, being mean, that they're envious or hateful or just looking for attention? These students, and their parents, sound exactly like the people who were standing up in defense of the literary plagiarists over the last few months. And the people who were defending the plagiarist writers sound exactly like these parents. It all comes out of the same pot, it's all born of the same ignorance and the same sense of entitlement, the same belief that anything they do to get ahead must be just fine. And so long as parents are teaching their kids that they can cheat and they can plagiarize and they can get away with it, and that their parents will support them and help slay the evil accuser when they get caught, we're going to have more and more plagiarizing students. And plagiarizing writers.
This is the next generation. They're being trained right now. Some of them are going to end up in our field, and their life experience so far is going to have taught them that the smart people take the easy way and that cheaters win and that whistle-blowers get smacked down.
Lovely. I can't wait.
Angie
Epilogue: Christine Pelton resigned her teaching position when the school board interfered with her decision about how to handle proven cheaters. She's no longer teaching, but has opened a day care center in her home. The education establishment is much poorer for the loss. [sigh]
To summarize, Christine Pelton was a science teacher at Piper High School in Kansas. Her sophomore biology class had a big project (called the "Leaf Project") to do, for fifty percent of their grade. Ms. Pelton was determined that no one in her classroom would get away with cheating, and before the project began, all the students and their parents had to sign a contract which included, among other things: "Cheating and plagiarism will result in the failure of the assignment. It is expected that all work turned in is completely their own." And as anyone who's made it to the sophomore level of high school (and certainly anyone who functions in the adult world, as all these students' parents theoretically do) should be able to figure out, if you fail a project that's fifty percent of your grade, then even if you ace everything else, you're gonna fail the class.
Simple, right?
Well, apparently this was a bit too complicated for some of the students and their parents to comprehend.
When the papers came in, Ms. Pelton noticed some lines which didn't sound like something her students would say. She turned to the internet, and discovered that twenty-eight of her students (almost a quarter of the sophomore class at Piper High) had committed plagiarism.
From one student: "I was kind of upset ‘cause I was pretty sure I did’t do it," he says, claiming he copied from the Internet but didn’t plagiarize.
"I put that as two different sentences," he says. "So it’s not like I copied it straight from the Web site. I changed it into two different sentences."
Oh, well, so long as he split the line he copied word-for-word into two sentences.... [eyeroll]
Bad enough that twenty-some percent of the sophomore class were cheaters. Just to compound the problem, when Ms. Pelton did as she had said she would from the beginning, and failed the projects of the cheating students, their parents -- rather than being outraged at the cheating and grounding their kids till they were thirty -- rose up in angry protest against Ms. Pelton and took the matter to the school board.
Then to pour gasoline onto the situation and set fire to it, the school board caved in to the parents' demands, and intervened. They declared that the Leaf Project was worth a much smaller percentage of the students' total grade, so even the students who'd cheated and failed the project would pass the class if they'd been doing well otherwise.
Wow, I'll bet those students will learn a huge lesson from that.
Seriously, just what the heck did those parents think? That they were doing their kids any favors? That they were teaching them anything positive? That they were helping their children? Really? Let's look at some statements from the parents:
"The problem in her classroom wasn’t with the students, but with the teacher," says one parent.
"Plagiarism is black on this side, white on this side, with a whole lotta gray in the middle," said another parent.
...
According to some of the parents of the students she failed, Pelton missed a "teachable moment."
"She’s uncovered plagiarism," says a parent. "That’s great, that’s wonderful, let’s give her an attaboy. Let’s stop, put on a seminar, teach these kids exactly what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and then let them take their new knowledge, go back, and rework their projects and resubmit them. They missed their teachable moment; I truly believe that."
Wow.
Any bets on how many of these students, or their siblings, or the students' kids later on, will be in the middle of a similar cheating/copying/plagiarism situation again some time, arguing indignantly that they did absolutely nothing wrong, that the people using the P-word are being harsh, being mean, that they're envious or hateful or just looking for attention? These students, and their parents, sound exactly like the people who were standing up in defense of the literary plagiarists over the last few months. And the people who were defending the plagiarist writers sound exactly like these parents. It all comes out of the same pot, it's all born of the same ignorance and the same sense of entitlement, the same belief that anything they do to get ahead must be just fine. And so long as parents are teaching their kids that they can cheat and they can plagiarize and they can get away with it, and that their parents will support them and help slay the evil accuser when they get caught, we're going to have more and more plagiarizing students. And plagiarizing writers.
This is the next generation. They're being trained right now. Some of them are going to end up in our field, and their life experience so far is going to have taught them that the smart people take the easy way and that cheaters win and that whistle-blowers get smacked down.
Lovely. I can't wait.
Angie
Epilogue: Christine Pelton resigned her teaching position when the school board interfered with her decision about how to handle proven cheaters. She's no longer teaching, but has opened a day care center in her home. The education establishment is much poorer for the loss. [sigh]
Thursday, May 29, 2008
The Computer Hates Your Pseudonym
So I was at BayCon this last weekend and one of the panels I went to was on pseudonyms. One of the things the panelists talked about was the way so many writers are actually forced to change the name under which they publish, because the buyers' computers have slashed their purchase numbers to the point where their old name is no longer commercially viable. Two of the three panelists had been forced to do this, for exactly this reason (and were selling well under their new names, so obviously the tanked buying numbers weren't just because they were sucky writers).
This was interesting to hear because I remember reading Holly Lisle's series on this topic, from about a year and a half ago. (Link goes to the first, others are linked at the bottom.) Considering how much crap Holly took from various people who somehow got the impression that she was trashing the individual people who actually work at bookstores (and seriously, I have no clue where they got that because that's not what she says, anywhere), it was pretty cool to see three other writers sitting on a panel nodding and agreeing that this is absolutely how the industry works.
Anyway, with the caveat that this all applies to print publishing (and makes me happy to be an e-published writer for right now) some interesting points.
One: A writer has about a 75% chance of having to change their pseud at some point, and quite possibly more than once. Even assuming the estimate is most valid within the SF/Fantasy field, that's still a fairly honking big number.
Two: If your publisher still believes in you once the buying computers have written you off, you might be invited to keep writing for them under another name. If not, you're out, but you'll still need to use another pseud when you go trolling for a new publisher.
Three: The first six weeks a book is on sale is the critical period. These are the sales the computers look at when they decide how many of your next book to buy. So readers who wait until a series is finished before buying it to read all at once, especially if they delay because they've had too many series they were enjoying cancelled in the middle, are actually helping create the problem they're trying to avoid. :/
Now, I'm going to assume that if you're King or Gaiman or Clancy and sales are disappointing on your twenty-sixth book, that whoever is in charge of the purchasing software for B&N or WalMart or whatever will probably be willing to go in and do a hand correction so that they don't only buy 5000 copies of your twenty-seventh book, 'cause, you know, you're King or Gaiman or Clancy, and even your sucky books sell pretty darned well. But for the rest of us, one less-than-great sales total six weeks in can be devastating.
This is also another area where a small press can be advantageous to the writer. You might not have much chance of ever hitting the NYT Bestseller list if your book came out from Tiny Obscure Press, but on the other hand, TOP isn't expecting you to sell 50,000 copies, and won't dump your butt if you only sell 3000. Heck, TOP would probably be delighted if your book sold 3000 copies, and if you're a good writer and are willing to feed some fuel into the marketing machine, you can probably sell that many just through independent bookstores, especially in a field like F/SF where there are a lot of independent bookstores which are dedicated to your genre.
If you're with Baen or Tor or whatever, though, sales figures in the 3000 range means you'll probably be kicked to the curb. And that's likely to be true even if the rotten showing was the fault of the publisher; if they did some major ball-dropping on the marketing, for example, the numbers are still your numbers. Even if your previous book sold two or three times as many copies.
Oh, a funny: one of the writers had changed her name for the usual reason, and pre-order figures on her next book were very good. Until one of the big chains (either Borders or B&N, I forget which) got the word that Mary Newname was actually Susan Oldname. Someone who probably hadn't gotten laid the previous night added that bit of info to the sales program and the chain slashed its order down to pretty much nothing. [headdesk] The writer in question suggests keeping the secret until about six weeks before the release date; at that point you can blitz the independent bookstores with the news that yes, Mary Newname really is Susan Oldname, that writer whose books they liked before, so please order more of her books and let readers know about the connection. Six weeks prior is too late for the big chains to change their orders, though, so you're safe from that. And once your new book starts selling, those are the figures they'll use to calculate their next order, so it doesn't matter at that point if they make the connection.
And another funny: one of the other writers kept writing in his old series after he'd changed his name. [wry smile] Bob Newname's books were about the granddaughter of one of the characters in Tom Oldname's series, set in the same universe and all. This was all right with his publisher because all that mattered was the name on the book cover. But Tom got some e-mails from concerned fans asking whether he knew that this Bob guy was plagiarizing his universe. Umm, yeah, he knew that, but thanks anyway. [facepalm]
Which just goes to show how ridiculous the system is. But so long as the big chains, where the vast majority of paper books are sold, prefer to have their buying process completely automated, this is where we are. All we can do is game the system as well as we can.
Angie
This was interesting to hear because I remember reading Holly Lisle's series on this topic, from about a year and a half ago. (Link goes to the first, others are linked at the bottom.) Considering how much crap Holly took from various people who somehow got the impression that she was trashing the individual people who actually work at bookstores (and seriously, I have no clue where they got that because that's not what she says, anywhere), it was pretty cool to see three other writers sitting on a panel nodding and agreeing that this is absolutely how the industry works.
Anyway, with the caveat that this all applies to print publishing (and makes me happy to be an e-published writer for right now) some interesting points.
One: A writer has about a 75% chance of having to change their pseud at some point, and quite possibly more than once. Even assuming the estimate is most valid within the SF/Fantasy field, that's still a fairly honking big number.
Two: If your publisher still believes in you once the buying computers have written you off, you might be invited to keep writing for them under another name. If not, you're out, but you'll still need to use another pseud when you go trolling for a new publisher.
Three: The first six weeks a book is on sale is the critical period. These are the sales the computers look at when they decide how many of your next book to buy. So readers who wait until a series is finished before buying it to read all at once, especially if they delay because they've had too many series they were enjoying cancelled in the middle, are actually helping create the problem they're trying to avoid. :/
Now, I'm going to assume that if you're King or Gaiman or Clancy and sales are disappointing on your twenty-sixth book, that whoever is in charge of the purchasing software for B&N or WalMart or whatever will probably be willing to go in and do a hand correction so that they don't only buy 5000 copies of your twenty-seventh book, 'cause, you know, you're King or Gaiman or Clancy, and even your sucky books sell pretty darned well. But for the rest of us, one less-than-great sales total six weeks in can be devastating.
This is also another area where a small press can be advantageous to the writer. You might not have much chance of ever hitting the NYT Bestseller list if your book came out from Tiny Obscure Press, but on the other hand, TOP isn't expecting you to sell 50,000 copies, and won't dump your butt if you only sell 3000. Heck, TOP would probably be delighted if your book sold 3000 copies, and if you're a good writer and are willing to feed some fuel into the marketing machine, you can probably sell that many just through independent bookstores, especially in a field like F/SF where there are a lot of independent bookstores which are dedicated to your genre.
If you're with Baen or Tor or whatever, though, sales figures in the 3000 range means you'll probably be kicked to the curb. And that's likely to be true even if the rotten showing was the fault of the publisher; if they did some major ball-dropping on the marketing, for example, the numbers are still your numbers. Even if your previous book sold two or three times as many copies.
Oh, a funny: one of the writers had changed her name for the usual reason, and pre-order figures on her next book were very good. Until one of the big chains (either Borders or B&N, I forget which) got the word that Mary Newname was actually Susan Oldname. Someone who probably hadn't gotten laid the previous night added that bit of info to the sales program and the chain slashed its order down to pretty much nothing. [headdesk] The writer in question suggests keeping the secret until about six weeks before the release date; at that point you can blitz the independent bookstores with the news that yes, Mary Newname really is Susan Oldname, that writer whose books they liked before, so please order more of her books and let readers know about the connection. Six weeks prior is too late for the big chains to change their orders, though, so you're safe from that. And once your new book starts selling, those are the figures they'll use to calculate their next order, so it doesn't matter at that point if they make the connection.
And another funny: one of the other writers kept writing in his old series after he'd changed his name. [wry smile] Bob Newname's books were about the granddaughter of one of the characters in Tom Oldname's series, set in the same universe and all. This was all right with his publisher because all that mattered was the name on the book cover. But Tom got some e-mails from concerned fans asking whether he knew that this Bob guy was plagiarizing his universe. Umm, yeah, he knew that, but thanks anyway. [facepalm]
Which just goes to show how ridiculous the system is. But so long as the big chains, where the vast majority of paper books are sold, prefer to have their buying process completely automated, this is where we are. All we can do is game the system as well as we can.
Angie
Monday, May 12, 2008
Update
I suppose I should let folks know how things are going, especially since I surfaced on Friday when I did my column.
Sometimes life just backs up a truck and dumps a whole load of crap on you. The usual crap is bad enough -- I've been on a low for a while and haven't done much of anything. But after nine months of slow improvement, my bad knee (my souvenir of a writing retreat in Vegas back in August) took a sudden downturn, bad enough to finally get me to drag my butt (with gimpy leg attached) to the doctor. It seems I have arthritis in my right knee. The doctor figures it's been building up for a while, and that one awful day standing and standing and standing just pushed it over some sort of threshold.
I'm still hoping she was wrong and something else will turn up; I went for X-rays before leaving, and there was a vague hope that the bones would look fine and it'd be something else. I went to the doctor almost a week ago, though, and I have to assume that if that'd been the case, they'd have called me by now to let me know that my kneecap was fine but some major tendon was hanging by a thread two cells thick, or whatever. That hasn't happened, so....
This really sucks, though. Arthritis isn't curable, it can only be dealt with. They basically give you bandaids until you can't walk at all, at which point the only option is a joint replacement. I'm taking glucosamine sulfate supplements, which are supposed to help encourage cartilage development; if it helps at all, I'm supposed to see results in three or four weeks. And I'm taking ibuprofen horse pills -- 800mg, three times a day, yay! After almost a week of the ibuprofen, I'm back up to walking about a quarter as much as I was before. :/ I've gained four pounds in the last two weeks, and am not at all happy about it.
Pretty much every older woman in my family has or had arthritis in her knees, so it's not like this came popping up out of nowhere. It's still depressing, though. I've got to be able to walk. I was losing weight, very slowly but still losing, and now I'm gaining again, a heck of a lot faster than the loss ever was. I need to exercise. If the glucosamine doesn't do its thing, and I can't find a level of whatever pain medication that lets me get back to walking for exercise, I'm strongly considering arguing for a joint replacement immediately. It won't do me any good to wait until I'm stuck in a motorized scooter; by that time I'll be up to four hundred pounds (for anyone who doesn't know, that four pound gain put me just over three hundred, which I'd hoped to never see again) and even a new joint won't get me walking. If it's going to do me any good, it'll have to be now while I'm still only borderline.
Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I've only written a few thousand words of fiction since the new year, and I have no idea when that's going to change.
Hope everyone else is doing better than I am. [hugz]
Angie
Sometimes life just backs up a truck and dumps a whole load of crap on you. The usual crap is bad enough -- I've been on a low for a while and haven't done much of anything. But after nine months of slow improvement, my bad knee (my souvenir of a writing retreat in Vegas back in August) took a sudden downturn, bad enough to finally get me to drag my butt (with gimpy leg attached) to the doctor. It seems I have arthritis in my right knee. The doctor figures it's been building up for a while, and that one awful day standing and standing and standing just pushed it over some sort of threshold.
I'm still hoping she was wrong and something else will turn up; I went for X-rays before leaving, and there was a vague hope that the bones would look fine and it'd be something else. I went to the doctor almost a week ago, though, and I have to assume that if that'd been the case, they'd have called me by now to let me know that my kneecap was fine but some major tendon was hanging by a thread two cells thick, or whatever. That hasn't happened, so....
This really sucks, though. Arthritis isn't curable, it can only be dealt with. They basically give you bandaids until you can't walk at all, at which point the only option is a joint replacement. I'm taking glucosamine sulfate supplements, which are supposed to help encourage cartilage development; if it helps at all, I'm supposed to see results in three or four weeks. And I'm taking ibuprofen horse pills -- 800mg, three times a day, yay! After almost a week of the ibuprofen, I'm back up to walking about a quarter as much as I was before. :/ I've gained four pounds in the last two weeks, and am not at all happy about it.
Pretty much every older woman in my family has or had arthritis in her knees, so it's not like this came popping up out of nowhere. It's still depressing, though. I've got to be able to walk. I was losing weight, very slowly but still losing, and now I'm gaining again, a heck of a lot faster than the loss ever was. I need to exercise. If the glucosamine doesn't do its thing, and I can't find a level of whatever pain medication that lets me get back to walking for exercise, I'm strongly considering arguing for a joint replacement immediately. It won't do me any good to wait until I'm stuck in a motorized scooter; by that time I'll be up to four hundred pounds (for anyone who doesn't know, that four pound gain put me just over three hundred, which I'd hoped to never see again) and even a new joint won't get me walking. If it's going to do me any good, it'll have to be now while I'm still only borderline.
Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I've only written a few thousand words of fiction since the new year, and I have no idea when that's going to change.
Hope everyone else is doing better than I am. [hugz]
Angie
Friday, May 9, 2008
RTB Column on Worldbuilding
I had a new column go up on Romancing the Blog this morning, this time on worldbuilding. I've been heavily into science fiction and fantasy since I was small and this has always been one of my favorite topics. :) Head on over and let me know what you think.
Building Your Own World
Building Your Own World
Friday, March 28, 2008
Contest Winners
Sorry this took so long, but I'm finally catching up. [laugh/flail] The winners of my chunk of the Pay It Forward contest are:
Shauna and Ello!
Each of you get to pick one of the following prizes:
1. Support New Writers -- two books by new writers. That is, writers whose first commercially published book came out one year or less ago, as of 15 March 2008. Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.
2. Support Electronic Publishing -- a $15 gift certificate to Fictionwise, one of the major sellers of electronic books.
3. Try Something New -- two books from two writers whose work you've never read before. Try to make at least one of them in a genre you've never read before. You're not paying, so experiment! Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.
It's not a first-come, first-served; if you both pick the same one, that's cool.
Then, you each need to run this contest in your own blog. You don't have to do it exactly the same way I did -- you can make people do something different, or just enter by commenting if you want.
Thanks to everyone who entered. :D
Angie
Shauna and Ello!
Each of you get to pick one of the following prizes:
1. Support New Writers -- two books by new writers. That is, writers whose first commercially published book came out one year or less ago, as of 15 March 2008. Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.
2. Support Electronic Publishing -- a $15 gift certificate to Fictionwise, one of the major sellers of electronic books.
3. Try Something New -- two books from two writers whose work you've never read before. Try to make at least one of them in a genre you've never read before. You're not paying, so experiment! Mass market paperbacks or equivalent only, please.
It's not a first-come, first-served; if you both pick the same one, that's cool.
Then, you each need to run this contest in your own blog. You don't have to do it exactly the same way I did -- you can make people do something different, or just enter by commenting if you want.
Thanks to everyone who entered. :D
Angie
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